Chapter Seventeen
F or a kid who’d only been away from her for one night, Biyen sure had a lot to say.
“Logan couldn’t decide if the pilot house should be a dining room or a reading lounge and I said why don’t you let it be a playroom for kids who want to pretend they’re steering the boat? He said that’s a great idea and tomorrow I can go inside with him so we can talk more about it if that’s okay with you.”
“Is this what your job is?” Sophie accused Logan playfully. He was walking alongside them as they made their way home. “You plagiarize other people’s great ideas and take all the credit?”
“And all the money.” He nodded. “In this case, I will not be compensated, so you’re welcome to fifty percent of a big, fat zero.”
“Sounds about right.”
Biyen started to break into a run, then halted.
“Oh.” His shoulders fell. “I was going to go tell Gramps. I forgot he’s not there.”
“Yeah.” A bolt of loss went through her chest, leaving an ache. She hugged him into her side and gave his hair a brief stroke and kissed his crown. “It’s okay to forget for a minute. It’s something we don’t really want to remember.”
He nodded. “I’ll go tell Dad.”
“Go for it.”
He ran head, veering toward the tent on the lawn.
“Hey, you should know he didn’t just come home because he missed you.” Logan lowered his voice and touched her arm, slowing her step. “He asked if I was your boyfriend. Nolan told him you were thinking of leaving and said Biyen could live with him if you decide to live with me.”
“Fuck me,” she said under her breath, halting in the middle of the driveway. “What did you say?”
“That we weren’t together, but if you wanted to be, I would expect he would be as much a part of my life as you are. I mean that, Soph. Take as much time as you need to figure things out, but know that I want you both in my life. I’m late to the party, but whatever this is?” He pointed between them. “It’s not going away. Not for me.”
She had tried. God knows, she had tried to get over him. To hate him. To exile him from her life. It hadn’t worked. Nothing worked.
Biyen laughed and Logan turned his head to look that direction.
“I know this package includes Biyen’s father, too. I don’t love that part, but I accept it. I won’t interfere in how you manage him, but I will hold the line on whatever boundaries you set so tell me what they are and that’s where I’ll stand.”
Was it the romantic declaration she had always yearned for him to make? No. But it was one of the most meaningful promises he could make to her. He was telling her he accepted how flawed and messy she was. That he understood her.
She wanted to hug him. She wanted him to hold her while she leaned on him and let him give her the sense that, just for a minute, she wasn’t alone in this battle called life.
She wanted to tell him she loved him. Because she did. And yeah, he was right. It wasn’t going away.
“Thanks.” She gave his arm a squeeze and cleared her throat before calling out, “Hey, bud? Can you help Logan start making supper? Your dad and I need to talk.”
“What are we having?”
“I don’t know,” Logan called. “But there is a metric ton of casseroles in the freezer up at the house. You want to walk up with me and see what looks good?”
“Sure. Maybe Emma would let me Facetime Immy and Coop.”
“Let’s go ask.”
Sophie watched them head up the path before turning her attention to Nolan and the latest boundaries she needed to set.
*
They found a vegetarian lasagna and left it on the washer while Biyen used Emma’s tablet to chat with the Kiwi kids. The timing had worked out perfectly since they’d just arrived home from their day at school.
Logan was trying to feed Storm while Emma prepared their own dinner, but Storm kept turning her head to where the kids were giggling.
“You got a bad case of fomo, don’t you?” Logan scraped the pureed yam from her cheek and pushed it toward her mouth again.
She made a face of disgust and turned her face away, then held out her hand toward the counter. “Ta? Ta?”
“Oh, that’s my bad, leaving those where you can see them.” Emma noticed the clear box of blueberries she had removed from the fridge in her search for something else. “All right. A few of these, then you eat your dinner.”
She washed a small handful and brought them to Storm’s tray.
“How’s Sophie?” she asked while she was close enough to speak softly.
“It’s going to be a constant adjustment.” Logan shrugged philosophically. “She”—He glanced at the back of Biyen’s head—“She’s thinking about leaving,” he whispered.
Emma’s eyes almost fell out of her head.
“Don’t…” He motioned toward Biyen.
“No, I know.” She chewed the corner of her mouth, as filled with consternation as he was. “What about…” She searched his eyes, still speaking under her breath. “Are you two…?”
“I’m not sure.” It said a lot about how much Emma had become like a sister to him, when he found himself saying, “I don’t want to push her because…” He shrugged to indicate his past mistakes. “But I really want to push her.”
Em’s mouth quirked with sympathy.
“Ta?” Storm’s blue hand opened and closed while she looked to the fridge.
“You’re not going to eat anything else, are you?” Emma stroked Storm’s hair and started to lean down to kiss it, but stopped to look at the smear of orange in her palm. She made a face, then said wryly, “I’ve picked up worse off you, though, haven’t I?”
She went to wash more blueberries.
*
Sophie had the oven preheated when Logan and Biyen got back. Nolan had gone to have a beer with friends so she left Logan making a salad and said to Biyen, “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Am I in trouble?” Biyen asked as they started toward the beach.
“No. Am I?”
He giggled. “No. But I thought you might be mad that I keep coming home from camping.”
“You can always come home to me. I’ll never be mad about that.”
“Is this our home, though?” he asked with a worried pull of his brow. “Isn’t it Gramps’s house? Like, what happens now?”
“Oh, bud. I didn’t realize you were worried about that. I should have explained.” She was starting to think Nolan had actually thought he was reassuring Biyen when he told him he could live with him. Nolan wasn’t canny enough to be passive-aggressive or tough enough to be aggressive-aggressive. He was water, always looking for the path of least resistance.
“Gramps and I made wills after you and I came to live with him. He made sure the house will become mine. There’s a bunch of government stuff like probate and taxes and title transfer that I will complain about for ages, but this is definitely our home unless we decide to live somewhere else.”
“Do you want to?” His anxious gaze came up to hers.
“I don’t know.” They reached the beach and stepped down from the grass. Sophie moved to sit on a weathered log. “What do you think of that idea?”
“I don’t know.” He dropped to his knees and began pushing his hands around in the dry, coarse sand. “Would we live with Logan?”
“Logan doesn’t have a house at the moment, so that would be tricky. Also, Logan and I have a lot of things to work out before I would want to live with him.”
“He told me that you used to be mad at him and then he apologized.” He drew a circle all the way around himself. “Couldn’t Dad apologize, then you not be mad at him?”
“He could.” He fucking well could and good luck waiting for that particular corner of hell to freeze over. The man had seen absolutely nothing wrong with telling Biyen he wanted to live here with them and putting it on her to tell Biyen that it was never going to happen. “I’m not really mad at your dad. We think differently and that makes it hard to spend a lot of time together. It’s like how you and Immy and Cooper got along really well, right away, but you don’t always want to play with JayJay, even though he’s right here and wants to play anytime.”
“JayJay only wants to play video games. I like to go outside.”
“Exactly. You guys are different and seeing each other at school feels like enough.”
“But you and Logan are more the same?”
“We have a lot in common, yeah. We have similar values.” Logan would always pay a bill and pull his own weight. She knew that. He treated her as an equal, whereas Nolan treated her like a convenience store.
“Would you marry him?” Biyen asked.
“Honestly? When I was growing up, I was sure that I would marry him someday. Then he went away and I had you and I stopped imagining that.” She wasn’t ready to go there again. The ground was still too soft, the bruises still tender. “For me to marry anyone would be a huge decision that would affect you so I would want your opinion before I did anything like that.”
“I like Logan.” He shrugged. “He’s funny sometimes.”
Sometimes. Sophie would be sure to let him know it was only sometimes .
“Would you guys have a baby?”
“Whoa. Buddy. We are a long way from talking about babies. Why?” She caught the slump in his shoulders. “Do you want a little brother or sister? Babies are a lot of work, you know. They cry and make a mess.”
“I know. Storm cried so much in Vancouver. But she was happy to see me when we went over for the lasagna. She tried to crawl to me, and when I sat on the floor by her, she put her head on me.” His shoulders came up to his ears and he grinned with goofy pleasure.
“She’s a cutie-pie, isn’t she?” Maybe it was time to seriously consider a dog.
“I’m old enough to help you with a baby,” he pointed out. “I don’t want to change one. Not a poopy diaper,” he said firmly. “But I could read to them and play with them. I think you should think about it.”
“Oh, do you?”
“Uh-huh. Then when I go away to college, you would still have someone here. Unless you were married to Logan. I guess that would be okay, too.”
He was such an innocent sometimes, then he turned into Gramps, carrying the wisdom of a lifetime.
“What about Dad?” he asked.
“What about him?” She tensed.
“He doesn’t know where to live because you said we might not stay here.”
“I know, but he is a grown adult who can make his own decisions. It’s okay that he’s talking to you about it. I’m doing the same thing, asking your opinion because it affects you, but you don’t have to fix anything for your dad. I already told him that if he needs some money for rent, I’ll do what I can to help him with that.”
“Okay, but like, I like to see him and usually I like camping, but right now I feel like I need to be at home with you. This is a really sad time for us.”
God, she loved him. Tears welled in her eyes and her lips started quivering, making it hard to speak.
“It really is,” she agreed, mouth wobbling.
“If Logan wants to stay with us, we should let him. He’s really sad, too. But Dad keeps trying to cheer me up. I feel like I have to be happy when I’m with him, even though I’m not.”
“Not everyone knows how to act with someone who is grieving. It’s never easy for anyone. It’s okay to tell your dad you want to have some quiet time in your room, if that’s how you feel, but we do have to talk about one other thing. Now that Gramps is gone, I can’t leave you home all by yourself while I’m at work.”
“Logan said I could help him tomorrow.”
“I know. That’s fine, but if your dad is here, you could spend time with him. Otherwise, what would you think of going to the day camp in Bella Bella?”
“Really? And go on the seabus all by myself?” He perked up with excitement.
“With the other kids who are going, yeah.” Apparently, there was a teenaged chaperone who took them across and made sure they got in the van. “They said you could try it for one or two days to see if you like it.”
“The one with the nature walks and crafts? Yeah, I want to do that.” He nodded.
“Okay. I’ll call tomorrow and set it up.”
“Can we go home now?” He stood and brushed his knees. “I’m starving.”
“Me, too. Let’s go.”
*
It was Sunday. Nolan had caught the ferry north this morning, planning to visit friends in Prince Rupert. Biyen had just left for a playdate. Randy was on call at the marina.
Logan was about to start the dishes but caught Sophie looking at him. Heat rolled straight into his groin.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. “You don’t need to ask. I’ll race you there.”
“We can walk.” She deliberately brushed up against him on the way to her bedroom. “I don’t want any stubbed toes slowing us down.”
He mostly slept upstairs, in the room next to Biyen’s. They had only managed a couple of quickies in the last week and hadn’t talked again about what it meant that they were messing around like this.
It meant a lot to him, not that he was sure how to say so. Or whether he should. He didn’t want to pressure her, but he did want her to know this wasn’t casual for him. In his mind, she was setting the pace, but they were definitely moving toward a life together.
His heart took a swerve as he fully accepted that. Sophie. Marriage. More kids, maybe? He had never imagined it for himself, but now it was something he saw very clearly. Thinking of it only made him want it more.
He watched her peel out of her T-shirt and drop the cutoff shorts she was wearing, then slip free of her bra and drop her plain, white undies.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she pulled the scrunchie from her kinky hair so the tresses fell around her freckled shoulders.
“Not a damned thing. I’m enjoying the show.”
“I don’t need to get a tape measure or my laser stud finder?”
“Hello. You got a stud right here.” He stripped off his own clothes, catching her eye-roll.
We should talk , he wanted to say, but she sauntered up to him and took hold of his hardening cock. His brain turned to lava and all he could think at that point was that he wanted to be inside her.
He gathered her up, always loving the soft warmth of her over the sturdy resilience of muscle and pure grit. He dropped his mouth to hers, gently feasting, enjoying the chance to take it slower this time.
Or not. She rolled her thumb over the weeping eye of his cock and a sharp sting of pleasure shivered down into his balls. He groaned into her mouth, combing his fingers into her hair to hold her for a long, deep kiss, trying to tell her how important she was to him.
She paused briefly, opening her eyes. She looked very young in that moment. Uncertain.
“Okay?” he murmured.
“I get scared sometimes,” she whispered.
Scared that he would hurt her? That he would leave her again?
“Me, too,” he admitted, not realizing what he was going to say until it came out. “Because I love you with everything in me and I don’t know how to make you believe that.”
She bit her lips together, then, “I love you, too.”
He hadn’t expected such simple words to rock him to his core. He was naked, so fucking naked, but she was right here, naked against him.
She touched the back of his head, urging him to kiss her again and he did, even more reverently than before. He wanted to pour himself into her. This was raw and new and far, far more profound than he could have imagined, but it was good. So good to hold her and touch her and kiss her. To make her twitch and writhe at the lightest touch against her lower spine and to hear her breath catch when his fingers grazed the side of her breast.
They stood there a long time, kissing and touching, maybe using this time to deliberately let the old hurts flow away because guilt and pain and shame were all there, imbuing each caress as he tried to heal up each scar he had left on her, then it slowly became only her. Sophie and heat and need.
She was wet against his fingers as he caressed between her thighs. He was so hard he thought he’d burst when she rolled the condom on him.
They went onto the bed together, moving in unspoken tandem. She parted her legs and he guided his tip against her hot, slippery flesh. Then he was sinking into her heat in one slow thrust.
Her legs came around him and he leaned on his elbow while he tucked her securely beneath him. He loved sex with her. He wanted to do all the filthy things, but those could wait. Right now, this was all he needed or would ever need. Just this quiet, perfect connection with her.
They moved a little here and there. Her inner thigh stroked his waist and her foot rubbed his leg. She sifted her fingers through his hair and sucked on his tongue until he could have come from that alone.
He nibbled her bottom lip and her earlobe and circled her turgid nipple with his thumb. He loved how plump and swollen her nipples got when she was this aroused. They were so sensitive that his lightest touch made her breath hitch and her pussy clench around him.
“I need to come,” she gasped.
It only took a few strokes for both of them. Not even hard ones. He ground his hips into her pelvis and they were tossed into the throes of a long, incredible, simultaneous orgasm.